Toph Bei Fong
Personality When first introduced, Toph brought a totally new personality to the group. Unlike the nurturing Katara, flighty Aang or gruff but goofy Sokka, Toph is fiercely independent, sarcastic, direct, stubborn and confrontational. She appears to have the same carefree and adventurous personality as Aang and she is very tomboyish in the way she acts and dresses - a contrast to the delicate doll her parents saw her as. However, unlike Aang, who avoids fighting whenever possible, Toph loves battling and takes great pride in her Earthbending skills. She appears eager to prove that she is as strong as anyone who can see and the best Earthbender in the world. Toph's eagerness to prove that she can be independent has led to some initial difficulties with Aang and his friends. Toph insists that she can "carry her own weight" and often mistakes a simple friendly gesture as an act of pity for her blindness. Her encounter with Iroh, however, has taught her that Aang, Katara and Sokka care for her because they are friends, not because her disability makes them feel obligated to do so. Toph is brutally honest when criticizing others, especially her friends. She is vocal about her opinions on others regardless of status (the Avatar, Aang) or age (Iroh). Her occasional attitude or aloofness may be related to her being the only child of one of the richest families in the Earth Kingdom. Thanks to her time as a competitor and champion of Earthbending tournaments, she is an expert in verbally taunting and insulting her opponents and on occasion her friends (particularly Sokka). She reveals to Katara that, being unable to see what she looks like, she doesn't feel the need to fuss over her appearance. However, despite her many quirks, Toph has shown that she is a quick learner and her courage and loyalty to her new friends seems very stable. Toph and Katara seem to be polar opposites; while Katara is kind, welcoming and supportive, Toph is tough, unyielding and steadfast. This extends to their teaching styles to Aang. However, Toph eventually shows a bit of compromise to help Aang through his initial difficulty with Earthbending. Despite occasional clashes or spats Toph and Katara generally get along, perhaps if only for the fact that they are both girls. One of Toph's most obvious traits involves personal hygiene. She is accustomed to lying on the ground and walking everywhere barefoot leaving her soles quite soiled. This is common, however, as most Earthbenders in the show walk barefoot, likely so that their body is directly touching the earth at all times. Also, she has been seen belching loudly, picking her nose, spitting, and is usually covered in dirt or, as she calls it, "a healthy coating of earth". Toph is well-educated in the manners and bearings of high society—she merely consciously and constantly chooses to ignore them. She makes an exception when the group needs to go to a special party to see the Earth King, in order to give news of the solar eclipse, only to meet the head of the Dai Li, Long Feng.[1] Toph doesn't let her blindness hurt her self-confidence. Once Toph tells Katara, "One of the good things about being blind is that I don't have to waste my time worrying about appearances. I don't care what I look like. I'm not looking for anyone's approval. I know who I am."[2] Katara replies by saying how she deeply admires Toph's self-assuredness. Toph has high self-esteem and is more than determined to show that she won't let her blindness deter her from living and fighting like everyone else. An ongoing joke concerning Toph's blindness is her lack of ability to discern anything that has been written or drawn. In Ba Sing Se, Toph becomes angry when Sokka suggests that she needs help putting up flyers. She spitefully puts up a poster, only to inadvertently place it backwards and saying, "It's upside-down, isn't it?".[3] Also, she sarcastically compliments Sokka on his drawings of Appa despite the obvious fact that she cannot see them. Later, in the Fire Nation, after being presented with the same wanted poster twice, Toph vocally expresses her annoyance with the constant oversight.[4] Toph, at times, even jokes about it herself. For example, while searching for the library, Toph, while flying on Appa, claimed that she saw it, before remarking "That's what it'll sound like when one of you spots it" before waving a hand in front of her eyes, and then, “I’ve held books before, and I gotta tell you, they don’t exactly do it for me”.[5] In the final battle, Toph mistakes Sokka's comment about taking the wheel thinking he was referring to her. By the smile on her face she was gleeful about getting another chance to correct him. But it turns out that Sokka was talking to Suki and she manages to cover up her intention pretty well.[6] At the end of the Sozin's Comet she makes a joke about Sokka's drawing that she thinks everyone looks great.[7] Abilities Earthbending Despite her blindness, Toph has proclaimed herself the most powerful Earthbender in the world. Indeed, her bending abilities were drastically potent. Although blind, Toph has the unique ability of seismic sense: she uses Earthbending to "feel" even the most minute vibrations in the earth, including the march of ants several meters away and the presence of trees and buildings. Through this heightened seismic sense, she can visualize where people are, their relative distance to her, and their physical build, but she cannot visualize faces.[10] This sense provides her with a distinct advantage when facing other Earthbenders in combat because she can predict attacks as they begin and quickly react, and her speed and agility are also greatly beneficial. Her Earthbending style is unique and thus unpredictable, as her training was unconventional. This style greatly differentiates from the rigid training and fighting style that Earthbenders like the Dai Li implement. Toph's style tends to be proven to be superior to the Dai Li, as she was able to take on a number of them and defend her friends at the same time. This is likely because while the Dai Li just manipulate the earth, Toph establishes a tremendously deep connection to it (although both styles have an overdependence on something i.e. the Dai Li and their earth gloves and Toph and her feet). However, because Toph is dependent on vibrations in the earth, she is vulnerable to air-based attacks, as shown in her fight with Aang in the Earth Rumble VI. Then, Toph is completely surprised by Sokka dropping a large belt on her head. Her success rate in intercepting projectiles is also tied to her sensing of vibrations, being able to feel an opponent's movement and proceed accordingly. By her own admission, she can't feel her own projectiles while they are airborne.[11] Terrain that impairs Toph's ability to sense vibrations also hinders her abilities, as shown when Toph has some difficulty with sand, describing the vibrations in the earth as "fuzzy". She is able to compress sand into solid rock to gain some temporary footing, but is still unable to accurately aim attacks under those conditions. However, finally, she seems to have gained some mastery of sandbending, as she mentions working on it and is able to create a miniature version of the upper ring of Ba Sing Se in rich detail. Her ability to sense vibrations may have improved, which may be how she was able to produce the very fine details of the city and did not show the same helplessness she had shown when previously walking on sand when the gang stepped onto the beach. Toph also expresses an aversion for flying and submarine travel, as she can't sense her surroundings without her feet on solid ground. Also, as a result of her closeness or affinity with earth, Toph can rest or sleep comfortably on solid rock without any sleeping bag or blanket and can walk on any kind of terrain in bare feet, a standard trait for Earthbenders. Toph relies on direct contact between her feet and the ground for "sight" as well as for her Earthbending. Toph is very reluctant to allow anyone to touch her feet, probably because insensitive handling there would make her deaf to other vibrations and thereby render her helpless (and because they are far more sensitive than other people's feet). Despite her substantial prowess on land, Toph does not perform well in water and on ice. She is not able to swim and became nauseous when she needed to travel by submarine in the Invasion of the Fire Nation. Toph has a great sense of hearing and can recognize people by the sound of their voices. In the desert, Toph recognized the Sandbender who stole Appa, adding that she never forgets a voice. In Ba Sing Se, Toph was seen feeling even slight vibrations as she told a man they meet, "I can feel you shaking". Also, Toph demonstrates an ability to sense when a person is lying by the vibrations of his/her heartbeat and breathing patterns. However, Toph's senses are not absolute, as Azula demonstrates that she is easily able to lie without even the slightest physical reaction. However, not many people have the ability to lie while manipulating their breathing and pulse in this way. Toph's Earthbending style is based on Chu Gar Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu, which is a style that is apparently unique to her; the style of Earthbending used by other Earthbenders is rooted in the Hung Gar style of Kung Fu. She is the only bender known to use a style based on a different root martial art than the standard for their bending art. This may be because she is self-taught rather than trained in the traditional Earthbending form. Toph came to develop her unique style by observing the movements of the similarly blind EarthbendingBadgermoles that can be found around her hometown. Sandbending After the events her ineffective sight while in the Si Wong Desert , Toph practiced her Sandbending, achieving a mastery over it that allowed her to create an extremely detailed sand version of Ba Sing Se during her time relaxing at Ember Island. Metalbending Toph is the first and only known character with the ability to bend metal. Metal is derived from ore, which is found in the earth. Guru Pathikexplained to Aang that "Metal is just a part of Earth that has been purified and refined". Because of Toph's ability to feel the vibrations in earth, she is able to locate the impurities (the small fragments of earth) in metal and manipulate them to "bend" the metal portion. When Sokka finished his training as a sword master, he gave Toph a small piece of meteorite, which being composed of earth and metal, she could easily mold into a myriad of shapes, and subsequently transformed it into an arm bracelet she now wears. Aside from these abilities, Toph has shown herself to be one of the most powerful Earthbenders in the world, being the only known Earthbender to ever bend metal, a feat that even the Avatar has been unable to perform since the origin of Earthbending. In Wulong Forest, when she was breaking into a Fire Nation Airship, it was shown that her Metalbending had improved greatly as she made a metal armor and manipulated the metallic structure of the room with far more ease than before, moving metal more fluidly. She is also able to crawl hanging on to the metal ceiling while completely covered in metal. Also, Toph could Metalbend outside of her metal armor, even though she already was bending the armor in the first place. Category:Kakashi's/Tigger's Group